Monday, July 22, 2013

Writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan notes a
striking similarity between a recent description of Detroit in the Observer
and Ayn Rand's description of Starnesville in her "dystopian" Atlas
Shrugged. (He quotes each at length.) Not lost on Hannan is the fact that Detroit has hemorrhaged over a million residents since Rand's novel was published.

After reporting that one
native blamed his city's poor state of affairs on a failure of capitalism,
Hannan further notes that capitalism is one thing Detroit hasn't had for half a century
and correctly names statism as the culprit.

Of Detroit's $11 billion debt, $9 billion is accounted for by
public sector salaries and pensions. Under the mountain of accmulated
obligations, the money going into, say, the emergency services is not providing
services but pensions. Result? It takes the police an hour to respond to a 911
call and two thirds of ambulances can't be driven. This is a failure, not
of the private sector, but of the state. And, even now, the state is fighting
to look after its clients: a court struck down the bankruptcy application on
grounds that 'will lessen the pension benefits of public
employees'.

Hannan, taking note of financial parallels Mark Steyn
draws between the federal government and Detroit's, also warns that the
United States as a whole is headed down the same path, ending on the following
note:

Oh dear. No wonder the president would rather talk about Trayvon
Martin. If you want to see Obamanomics taken to its conclusion, look at
Starnesville. And tremble.

It is refreshing to see the truth spoken so plainly. It is too bad that, as a
commenter here recently pointed out, that one generally has to go to a foreign news source to hear
it.